[center][img=http://imageshack.com/a/img836/1971/lfx6.jpg][/center] [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fF8Q0SVchm0]Theme[/url] The city was in chaos. The once proud pillar of order and security was now drowned in blood and violence. Demons went after humans and angels went after them in turn, life flowing out freely out of open wounds. The sound of a thousand wings was maddening. The sky of Loom was dyed in white brilliance as the bigger part of the Council passed like a huge cloud, hiding the sun from the humans’ eyes and covering the Surface in shadows. The screams of distraught humans was distant to their ears, the cries of children hidden from their sight. They paid no heed to the happenings below, their eyes and minds set in the distance. It wasn’t the number of the wings alone that caused the frightened screams of many. It was the blazing light of those in front that hurt the humans’ eyes and souls – the wings of the Archangels. When the whole city started to vibrate with the beats of wings, buildings screeching in pain, Hazumi’s head shot up and so did her body. However the next step didn’t come to her, an unknown fear gripping her throat with the promise of death. It wasn’t hard to recognize it now, the fear of that demon… It was calling her and The Council, the entire Council was out, in Loom, the foe— She shook her head and made the step, leaping out of the window, wings securely catching her fall and carrying her to them. No doubt crept in her mind – she knew she was needed. Yet… The Council was closer than expected. Not even halfway to the Council building, she saw them in the distance. When they came in sight their flight slowed as if the gust of her wings was pushing them back. Like two demons fighting with their presence rather than their hands, the two groups slowed – Hazumi and the Council, and they silently drifted to earth, covering the Red Square like the petals of a blooming tree. Hazumi stared in awe at the majesty of this army, her eyes passing through them in search for answers to the question her lips couldn’t form. Yet the angels didn’t speak either. Instead they all, each and every one of them, flared their wings and pointed their open palms at her. Hazumi’s feathers bristled with the touch of a million hot needles, and then they pulled. They doubled their hands into fists and pulled and Hazumi’s body seized, all air escaping her. She doubled over but her feet didn’t move. It wasn’t her body they wanted, it was her essence. The dark angel gasped as her very essence felt strained and felt like it was ripping apart. Voices started surfacing in her chocking mind, begging for mercy, roaring for vengeance, hoping for peace. Some found answers on the other side of the invisible link, some believed the promises and some cursed them out, but Hazumi didn’t move. She didn’t fully understand what was going on but she knew there was an escape, a weakness in the army. Her eyes never bulged from the crowd and yes, sure enough, she saw something peculiar amidst the Tamers. It was one, a girl, calmly watching her, and she was not a Tamer, but a Clairvoyant instead, she knew, though she didn’t know how. And the Pure wasn’t even that… there was something strange about the way the skin stuck to her face, something peculiar about the greedy gleam in her eyes… “Listen to me,” …something peculiar about the volume of her voice in Hazumi’s head. Something familiar. “Essence.” Sight returned and the voices were quelled. The world disappeared, melted within those near-white pupils of the one who called her by name. She recognized the feathers of the one who made her kill innocents. And she recognized the creature underneath… “Listen to me… and remember. Remember your creation… your shaping.” [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-YPCvSHb3s]Theme[/url] And suddenly, on command, as if she was waiting for this her whole life, she remembered. She remembered her heart being ripped out of the motionless body of the Gatekeeper. She remembered it dying in agony, in sorrow and fury at the fate the demons had ensured, the death of the Gate and the collapse of Heaven. She remembered the first cracks that her fall had created on the Harp, the weight of the worlds now resting not on three, but on two sole pillars. She remembered Luciana’s blood-curdling scream as the imbalance first touched her mind and her own helplessness to stop it all. Even worse, it was her who caused it. But there was no strength left in her to fight what was happening. Her bodies were demolished and the Void was beaconing. But access was denied her. She was pulled back from the sweet embrace of nothingness back into a world filled with unimaginable pain, her existence straining to go or stay. There was no mouth left to express that agony… and that joy. Small fragments of life were forcefully re-entering her heart, filling it with essence that did not belong. Millions of soul fragments fought in resistance and her heart was breaking under the pressure. Then… something changed. A melody was heard, the sweet, sad whisper of a violin. It entered her and clouded the screams and the heart sang along to a lullaby that put them all to sleep. The former Gate and Gatekeeper merged in a shattered and corrupted Essence. Half an eternity later a consciousness emerged. A child, a human baby, open from head to toe, already losing its fragile dying voice, its amber eyes filled with nothing but suffering. The Essence was placed inside it – it was too big for the tiny body, it shouldn’t have been able to fit. But the FleshShaper never gave up, never gave Death a choice to take his toys away. With every tissue he connected pain started to return, with every vein – life stated cruising in and out of the heart. The millions of voices were quelled with each beat, the power of this new creation purging them of their identities, burning them away, smelting them all into one indistinguishable essence. Then… then came the wings. Not real ones, but forged, stolen, just like everything else – bare bones, each and every one with their own master… but with no feathers. They were sharp and ugly and incomplete. That’s when Kristine appeared. She took in the helpless body and nurtured it, sewing a new feather on the bare bones every night. Her hands were gentle, not like the FleshShaper’s, they didn’t cause pain, didn’t force anything on her body that didn’t belong there. The essences in the feathers didn’t scream with despair, but with hope instead, with joy. They were given willingly, a tribute to a greater cause. With time the body became more mobile and the essences inside – less so. They quieted and died down, a new one being introduced gradually every now and then, in the shape of a willing victim. Demons and humans came to their liar, sacrificing their bodies for a prophecy known to few. The rumors spread in the underworld about the place where people went missing, and they only attracted more and more visitors. The information they were offered inside apartment 86 was always the truth and always met with shock, awe, outrage or fear and they were always given a choice. Some decided to merge, some were forced to do so. Some left to spread the word. The small body grew and so did its skills. A single “consciousness” or rather, a “will”, emerged, and with it the body started functioning as a normal one should. It had already forgotten all about its past lives and now started learning the rules of this new universe. It was nurtured with the flesh and blood needed to sustain the demonic part of it, guided into unlocking the skills dormant within its essence. Most importantly, it had a master to obey. However, dark times were to come. The Essence could only be loyal to one and as Hazumi found someone else she’d rather belong to – a vampire called Jed – her nature started shifting. Kristine was blind to see the growing loyalty and deaf to hear the morality in the words of the surface demon. She didn’t know their power and the way they were bending the future. Nor did he. Neither of them knew they would be the cause of the Creator’s demise by the very hands of the creation. And Hazumi didn’t know that the admission would almost cost her her own life. She’d never known how she managed to survive that. Now she knew. It was the demons’ essence in her and their healing abilities that had cheated the Void that day. Or maybe it was Chime’s heart that beat in her chest that assured the Essence of the World couldn’t die by simple means. The memories passed yet they didn’t bring pain and suffering, only harmony. Now she knew, she remembered what she was. She understood why holy water and sunlight hurt her skin, why the hunger for essence suddenly returned, why she had the desire and will to kill without remorse and why the essence vials in her pocket never filled. She understood why the world made no sense if there was nobody to lead her. Hazumi sighed, not yet realizing that she had enough breath to spare for such an act. Before her stood the FleshShaper, the Creator who had never been her master, dressed in the ritual robes of dying skin, and he was everything that mattered. “You want me to serve you.” She finally spoke. Her voice was calm and level – it was merely stating the obvious and inevitable. “Yes. You were created to serve me and do so you should.” “Why?” She asked, more curious than anything. Her eyes were pinned on his, never blinking, never ceasing their attempt to understand. “Because I gave you life back. Because you, Chime, Violin, Vanessa, Gadrell, Flemm, Alexis Kasio… Because you, Essence, wouldn’t have been standing here today if it wasn’t for me to restore you.” [i]So? What does that matter?[/i] Hazumi wondered. [i]I was created because you wanted to create me – it is a deed already done and it is beyond my powers to change the past. I can only change the future, so why should the past matter? What matters is the future, not the past.[/i] “What do you want to do with me?” “I want you to consume the Harp. I want you to merge with Melody and Luciana. I want you to become the sole God of this god-forsaken world and I want you to set the Balance straight. Once Hell’s gate is demolished all three worlds will merge.” A mirthful light shone in the demon’s eyes. “And everyone will become equal. Angels, demons and humans will all collide and intertwine with each other – an age of possession or taming, an age of erased boundaries. A truly magnificent world will emerge from that, full of beings much more powerful than ever before, a world of Chimeras!” [i]A new world… but only if the rotting ashes of the old one are there to fertilize it.[/i] “An age of death and violence. An age where only the strong survive and all law and moral is drowned in bloodlust and the frenzied will to survive. A world mirroring the Void itself, a flipped image of the one Aaurus has created by separating us all? No. You don’t talk of creation, you talk of destruction. What good will that bring?” “But it will. Even our current world only allows for the strongest ones to survive. It happens in Hell where the weak get consumed by the strong, and it happens on the Surface too. Even the very Council is built on the foundations of fear and raw power. However, there is still imbalance. The angels and humans prevail and the demons are locked away like beasts in a cage. I merely want for the chances to be even.” Hazumi had to ponder about that. None of what he said was untrue. In her short life she had met demons who didn’t deserve to die and angels who did. She had met humans fighting for survival, with any means necessary. And what the FleshShaper was saying was told to her before, by an angel and by a demon. Sacrifices had to be made for the sake of progress. But how big did those sacrifices need to be? Was it worth destroying the fragile balance of this world to try and create another? The pressure of expectation was slowly sapping her willpower away, numbing her body and slowing her mind. Then time started again. In a kilometer radius a shockwave spread through the city, topping houses, bending the asphalt, shattering windows and sending everyone on their hands and knees. When Hazumi’s head snapped up her eyes found the source of the earthquake. It was the body of an archangel, dead at the hands of Krengius Fardine, The Great Defiler. It was the escape of the Original’s essence that had made their eyes, eardrums and souls bleed. [i]No. I will not serve the Destructor and the violator of Life. And I will not serve the Imposers either.[/i] With one swift move of the hands Hazumi parted the creatures, the FleshShaper on one side, the angels on the other, tugged away from each other like rag dolls. The sky groaned like a wounded piece of fabric, ready to rip into nothingness. Hazumi could feel their essences on the tip of her fingers, all small and insignificant against the weight of the 3 worlds whose pulse now vibrated within her. Without a word she clenched her fists and snuffed the creatures’ essences out, trapped inside her body, the meaty shells of what they once were now empty and motionless. Straightening her back she took a deep breath and listened to the song of her heart that was whispering in her ears. The Violin she’d once been was humming, its sound sweet and dangerous, sharp and gentle all the same. A small smile appeared on her lips at the familiarity of the sensation – the beautiful melody that set things straight, one that had been silenced 5000 years ago by the very hands of the FleshShaper. He had created the chimeras – beings the Gatekeepers and Gates had no control over, beings they weren’t attuned to understand. They didn’t recognize their sounds and couldn’t turn them to melodies of war or piece, all they could do was… crumble. She should kill the FleshShaper. She should return his essence to the Void and ask Him to never give it back again. Or maybe she should kill the Council for disrupting the Balance, for diluting their blood with the one of humans and occupying the Surface. In her hands lay the weight of the World and she knew she had the power to change it. She was the Essence of the World, a creation of Aaurus, Lucy and Life itself. She could do anything, [i]anything[/i] to this world. She could break the will of men and angels with one hum of the lips and erase the demons’ thirst for death with one swipe of the hand. Yet… yet she lacked guidance. And she couldn’t decide what the right thing to do was. Closing her eyes and isolating herself from the world once more, Hazumi let her mind drift back to the Gate of Hell. Melody was waiting there, acknowledging her presence merely with a smile, never ceasing the tune that kept the World and all Life moving. “Hello.” Hazumi greeted dumbly, uncertain if she had the right to call Melody her sister now. “Hello, sister.” The other woman replied, making Hazumi smile. “I am happy to see that you’ve awakened and haven’t destroyed the world yet. What brings you here?” “Guidance. I seek guidance.” “From me?” Melody asked, a chuckle escaping her lips. “My dear, I have no right to tell you what is right and what is wrong.” “But you [i]are[/i] everything that’s right and wrong.” “No.” Melody laughed. “No, my dear. I am everything that [i]was[/i] right and wrong. I am what Aaurus and Lucy created long, long ago, before Life became what it is today. I am a relic, just like Luciana and Lucien, just like Chime who fell first. What you need is someone Alive themselves. Someone who knows the world as it currently is. Someone who lives in it. I cannot play you.” Hazumi lowered her head, closed her eyes and sighed. Once she opened them she was on the Surface again, creatures of all natures surrounding her motionless body with unhealthy curiosity. She scanned them and realized she knew a few of them by name. Lucien, the father of one of her, Azel, the one who gave her wisdom, Szayeis, the Lord and Solus, the man who had selflessly and selfishly broken the second Rule of the Council over and over again. A smile tugged on her lips as she slowly moved her golden eyes across them, surveying them, measuring her loyalty to them. She didn’t hold enough to let any play her. However each and every one of them was fit to wield her. The Essence of the World, the thing she had forcefully but not unwillingly become, was the ultimate power. It was the power to change, the power to bend and twist reality and Life itself as the master see fit. However her own essence didn’t long for the responsibility of using it. It longed to be used instead. So, closing her eyes for one last time, Hazumi let her consciousness drift away and dissolve into the overwhelming desire to serve. Her physical form shifted and changed, and “she” rested in mid-air in the shape of a simple sword. The air around it rippled and pulsed with invitation, filling the winds of Loom with the call for anyone willing to take it and change the World.